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by Necalli Ollin
"Given the robust development of children's rights, it is absurd to assert that, while juveniles have many rights, being treated as a juvenile is not one of those rights." (Cara H. Drinan, Professor of Law, The Catholic University of America, "The Miller Trilogy and the Persistence of Extreme Juvenile Sentences," 58 Am. Crim. L. Rev. 1659, 1671 (2021)).
Friday, September 10, 2021, Berrien County Trial Court Judge
Charles LaSata upheld a life without parole (LWOP) sentence for Efrén Paredes,
Jr., a 48-year-old Latinx man, for a crime he was convicted of when he was a
minor ("juvenile lifer"). It was the first time in the past thirteen
months -- since August 2020 -- a Michigan judge had issued the sentence for a
juvenile offender. Previous to the ruling the state had been trending away from
the extreme sentence for minors. LaSata, a conservative Republican judge, has
served on the bench since 2004.
According to statewide data, 251 of the 367 juvenile lifer
cases have been resolved as of September 9, 2021. Of that number, 94% have
received term of year sentences and only 6% have received a LWOP sentence
again. Statewide, juvenile lifers have received sentences averaging 30.5 years.
Nationwide the average sentence has been 25 years, according to the Campaign
for the Fair Sentencing of Youth.
Efrén was originally arrested at age 15 for the March 8,
1989 shooting death and robbery of a grocery store manager in St. Joseph, a
small town in southwestern Michigan with a population of 9,214 people. He was
the first juvenile in Berrien County to be automatically transferred to circuit
court to be tried as an adult after passage of a 1988 Michigan law which
authorized prosecutors to do so without a waiver hearing. Only three months
after his arrest, Efrén was convicted by a jury composed of eleven white jurors
and one African-American juror. He was subsequently sentenced to two LWOP
sentences for one count of homicide and a parolable life sentence for one count
of armed robbery. Judge Zoe Burkholz presided over the trial and delivered the
sentence and, later, retired from the bench.
Three other juveniles were also convicted in the case. Eric
Mui, a 17-year-old Asian-American, received two 18-45 year sentences for one
count of murder and armed robbery. Alex Mui, a 16-year-old Asian-American,
received an 18-45 year sentence for one count of armed robbery. Jason
Williamson, a 16-year-old white teen, received a six month sentence in a
juvenile facility for one count of armed robbery. All three received plea deals
from the prosecutor's office. Eric and Alex Mui were released from prison after
serving 16 years in prison and Williamson served six months. Efrén was the only
person charged in the case who went to trial.
U.S. SUPREME COURT INTERVENES
The U.S. Supreme Court issued a landmark decision in 2012,
Miller v. Alabama, which banned mandatory LWOP sentences for juvenile
offenders. Four years later in the case Montgomery v. Louisiana, the high court
made the Miller ruling retroactive and applicable to juvenile offenders already
serving the sentence. The U.S. Supreme Court also ordered that all juvenile
offenders impacted by the ruling have their cases reviewed by a trial court judge
from the respective county they were convicted in for resentencing
consideration.
In 2016, then-Berrien County Prosecutor Michael Sepic filed
a motion with the trial court seeking to reinstate a LWOP sentence in Efrén's
case. Sepic had originally prosecuted the case more than 32 years ago as an
assistant prosecutor.
In 2020, Sepic retired as the county prosecutor. After his
retirement, the newly elected county prosecutor, Steve Pierangeli, swore Sepic
in as an assistant prosecutor so he could continue working on Efrén's case. In
a December 30, 2020 interview with the local newspaper, The Herald-Palladium,
Sepic referred to Efrén's case as the most memorable of his career. He
expressed his fixation with the case despite there being a number of other cases
in the county during the past 32 years involving multiple homicides and other
charges.
October 5-6, 2020, LaSata held a two-day hearing for Efrén
and his legal team to present evidence to the court as to why Efrén should
receive a term of year sentence rather than LWOP. At the hearing, several
witnesses testified on Efrén's behalf, presenting an abundance of compelling
anecdotal evidence of his growth, change, and rehabilitation. Other
documentation was presented showing a wide range of programs he has successfully
completed during his three decades of incarceration. Sepic was allowed to
present evidence at the hearing as to why he felt a LWOP sentence was
justified.
ELIGIBILITY FOR LWOP SENTENCES
In 2012 the U.S. Supreme Court made clear in its Miller v. Alabama
ruling that "incorrigibility is inconsistent with youth." (Miller v.
Alabama, 567 U.S. 460, 472-473 (2012) (quoting Graham v. Florida, 560 U.S. 48,
72-73 (2010)). The Court later added "Miller [v. Alabama] determined that
sentencing a child to life without parole is excessive for all but the 'rare
juvenile offender whose crime reflects irreparable corruption' or 'permanent
incorrigibility.'" (Montgomery v. Louisiana, 136 S. Ct. 718, 733-734
(2016) (quoting Miller v. Alabama, 567 U.S. 460, 479-80 (2012)).
"Permanent incorrigibility" in this context is defined as
"rare" juvenile offenders "who exhibit such irretrievable
depravity that rehabilitation is IMPOSSIBLE ..." and they are forever
incapable of change. (emphasis added) (Montgomery v. Louisiana, 136 S. Ct. 718,
733-34 (2016)).
According to the U.S. Supreme Court, "The same
characteristics that render juveniles less culpable than adults -- their
immaturity, recklessness, and impetuosity -- make them less likely to consider
potential punishment." (Miller v. Alabama, 567 U.S. 460, 472 (2012)).
"[O]rdinary adolescent development diminishes the
likelihood that a juvenile offender 'forever will be a danger to society.'
(Miller v. Alabama, 567 U.S. 460. 472 (2012) (quoting Graham v. Florida, 560
U.S. 48, 72 (2010)." (Montgomery v. Louisiana, 136 S. Ct. 718, 733
(2016)).
The Court previously also stated that "[t]he evolving
nature of their identities undermines the conclusion that ANY juvenile [is]
'irretrievably depraved in character.'" (emphasis added) (Roper v.
Simmons, 125 S. Ct. 1183, 1195 (2005) (quoting Thompson v. Oklahoma, 487 U.S.
815, 835 (1988)).
SENTENCING DISPARITIES
The September 10th LaSata ruling underscores glaringly
obvious racial bias and disparate treatment between the way he applied applicable
U.S. Supreme Court opinions in the cases of the two juvenile lifers on his
docket.
Mark Abbatoy, a white male who was 17 at the time of his
arrest, was the other juvenile lifer whose case LaSata reviewed. A brief
overview of the details of the crimes Efrén and Abbatoy were convicted of is as
follows:
Efrén was convicted of shooting a store manager four times
and robbing the store where he and the victim were both employed. The victim
was a 28-year-old white male named Richard Tetzlaff. There were no eyewitnesses
to the crime and no arrests were made in connection with the crime until a week
after it occurred. Sepic relied heavily on the testimony of 16-year-old Alex
Mui to convict Efrén. Mui, who admitted being involved in the crime, received a
plea deal from Sepic to drop his murder charge in exchange for agreeing to
testify against Efrén. Four alibi witnesses have attested to Efrén's
whereabouts at the time the crime was committed which is corroborated by
forensic evidence that disproves he committed the crime. In recent years new
witnesses have also provided sworn affidavits that Mui and others convicted in
the case admitted to lying about Efrén's involvement in the crime to evade
murder charges. Since his March 15, 1989 arrest Efrén has maintained his
innocence and denied any involvement in the crime.
The circumstances of the Abbatoy crime were that he and
another 17-year-old killed Abbatoy's mother in 1997 so they could steal her
car. According to a March 22, 2021 court hearing transcript in the Abbatoy
case, LaSata described the tragic event by stating: "Defendant [Abbatoy]
was incredibly brutal and depraved. The defendant beat [the victim] with a
shovel for ten to fifteen minutes. The defendant struck the victim at least ten
times with a shovel. ... Three to four blows [were] so forceful that they
fractured her skull embedding nine fragments of bone into her brain."
LaSata added that while the victim was being beaten, Abbatoy ripped the phone
from the wall so she couldn't call anyone for help.
When juxtaposing the Efrén and Abbatoy cases there are other
notable differences, such as the following:
Court records show Efrén had no juvenile adjudications prior
to the crime he is serving time in prison for. Abbatoy had three previous
juvenile adjudications. According to Michigan Department of Corrections (MDOC)
records, Efrén has received 19 misconduct reports in 32.5 years (an average of
0.06 per year) while Abbatoy has accrued 51 misconduct reports in 24 years (an
average of 2.2 per year).MDOC data reflects that the average person
incarcerated in a Michigan prison averages 2.2 misconduct reports per year.
Abbatoy was in the average range and Efrén fell far below the range.
Evidence was also presented in court by Efrén's legal team
that the average number of misconduct reports received by juvenile lifers from
Berrien County who have been resentenced is 34.5. One Berrien County juvenile
lifer received 80 misconduct reports and was not resentenced to LWOP.During
their mitigation court hearings, attorneys for Efrén and Abbatoy presented
anecdotal and documented evidence of accomplishments and rehabilitation during
their incarceration.
Efrén's legal team was able to submit substantially more
evidence in this regard, however, because of his successful completion of more
educational, vocational, and counseling programs since he has been incarcerated
eight years longer than Abbatoy.
Both Efrén and Abbatoy are also housed in the lowest
security level allowed in the MDOC due to the sentences they are serving (i.e.,
Level 2). During Abbatoy's March 22 court hearing, LaSata specifically
referenced this on the record as one of the reasons he granted Abbatoy a term
of year sentence.
RECENT MICH. APPELLATE COURT RULING
Attorneys in both Efrén's case and the Abbatoy case also
cited a published Michigan Court of Appeals ruling made earlier this year named
People v. Bennett, 2021 Mich. App. LEXIS 472. In 1972, David Bennett, age 17,
was convicted of stabbing a woman in Wayne County dozens of times resulting in
her death and sentenced to LWOP. Bennett was subsequently resentenced to LWOP
on June 5, 2020 by a Wayne County trial court judge who reviewed the case to
consider possible resentencing pursuant to the U.S. Supreme Court Miller v.
Alabama ruling.
The Michigan Court of Appeals reversed the trial court
ruling in the Bennett case on January 21, 2021. In doing so the appeals court
stated that trial courts must decide "whether [a] defendant 'was and would
remain WHOLLY incapable of rehabilitation for THE REMAINDER OF HIS
LIFE[.]'" (emphasis added) Failure to do so constitutes an abuse of
discretion subject to reversal. (People v. Bennett, at *9) (quoting People v.
Garay, 320 Mich. App. 29, 49 (2017)).
The Bennett ruling provided lower courts with clear guidance
about evaluating juvenile lifer cases for capacity for change and
rehabilitation.
According to the Michigan Court of Appeals,
"'rehabilitation' involves the successful completion of vocational,
education, OR counseling programs designed to enable a prisoner to lead a
useful life, free of crime, when released." (emphasis added) (People v.
Bennett, at *19).
Efrén's legal team provided the court a robust body of
anecdotal and documented evidence of his successful completion of each of these
examples a multiplicity of times. They also provided results from psychological
tests and actuarial risk assessment instruments that reflect Efrén poses a low
risk of violence or recidivism if released.
Letters of support from three retired MDOC career
professionals with decades of corrections experience (i.e., a former Warden,
corrections officer, and Efrén's employer of thirteen years) attesting to his
capacity for change and rehabilitation, as well as letters from multiple
professors from universities who taught classes Efrén participated in at
various prisons, were provided to the court as well.
The Michigan Court of Appeals stated in the Bennett case
"[t]o the extent that the resentencing court made a factual finding
regarding Bennett's risk of reoffending, it was clearly erroneous because no
evidence supported it. Nor did any evidence support any other ground for
Bennett's continued incarceration."
The court concluded, "Accordingly, we reverse and
remand for resentencing to a term of years based on the present record and
consistent with MCL 769.25(9). We further instruct that the resentencing be
conducted with all deliberate speed." (People v. Bennett, at *30-*31).
At Abbatoy's March 22, 2021 court hearing, LaSata stated on
the record that the Bennett ruling by the Michigan Court of Appeals is "a
published decision binding on this court." LaSata would go on to properly
apply U.S. Supreme Court precedent and the Bennett opinion to the Abbatoy case
and issue a fair ruling. He dismissed retired prosecutor Sepic's motion seeking
a LWOP sentence against Abbatoy and agreed to resentence him to a term of
years.
LASATA RULES IN EFREN'S CASE
Less than six months after issuing his principled ruling in
the Abbatoy case, LaSata abandoned U.S. Supreme Court precedent and the Bennett
decision by issuing an unintelligible ruling upholding a LWOP sentence in
Efrén's case. Much of the oral opinion delivered by LaSata parroted retired prosecutor
Sepic's previous talking points related to the case. LaSata began his ruling by
stating that part of his reason for upholding a LWOP sentence in Efrén's case
is that he has maintained his innocence since the time of arrest.
The Michigan Supreme Court has previously ruled that "a
court cannot base its sentence EVEN IN PART on the defendant's refusal to admit
guilt." (emphasis added) (People v. Hatchett, 477 Mich. 1061 (2009);
People v. Jackson, 474 Mich. 996 (2006)). The state's high court has also held
that "[i]t is a violation of due process to punish a person for asserting
a protected statutory or constitutional right." (People v. Ryan, 451 Mich.
30, 35 (1996)).
The case of a Berrien County man named Corey Quentin McCall
was vacated on June 25, 2021 and he was released after spending 16 years behind
bars for a crime he did not commit. LaSata was the district court judge
responsible for a 2005 ruling that found there was sufficient evidence to bound
the McCall case over to the circuit court to be tried for three counts of
murder and one count of attempted murder.
Without question LaSata is acutely aware that errors occur
in the criminal justice system. His own decision-making resulted in a wrongful
conviction. Despite this experience, however, LaSata elected to dismiss the
possibility that errors occurred in Efrén's case and he ruled against him for
asserting his constitutional right to maintain his innocence.
Another error LaSata committed in Efrén's case was citing
the circumstances of the crime as a reason to justify a LWOP sentence. The U.S.
Supreme Court has stated that the heinousness of a crime cannot by itself be
offered as evidence of the character of the juvenile. The high court explained
that looking at the offense alone would present an "'unacceptable
likelihood ... that the brutality or cold-blooded nature of any particular
crime would overpower mitigating arguments." (Graham v. Florida, 560 U.S.
48, 78 (2010) (quoting Roper v. Simmons, 543 U.S. 551, 572 (2005)). The Court
also affirmed "the truth of [Miller v. Alabama's] central intuition --
that children who commit even heinous crimes are capable of change."
(Montgomery v. Louisiana, 136 S. Ct. 718, 736 (2016)).
Another issue LaSata had to consider was whether Efrén being
15 years old at the time of arrest was a mitigating factor that counseled
against a LWOP sentence in his case. LaSata not only ignored U.S. Supreme Court
precedent regarding this factor, his reasoning for concluding that Efrén's age
was not a mitigating factor was also divorced from common sense, extensive
adolescent development research, and brain science that informs us children
possess an enormous capacity for change and rehabilitation.
The U.S. Supreme Court has stated that "the
chronological age of a minor is itself a relevant mitigating factor of great
weight ..." in assessing culpability. (Eddings v. Oklahoma, 455 U.S. 104,
116 (1982)). Adolescents are more prone to risk-taking and impulsivity --
traits that likely influence their criminal conduct -- and are not yet mature
enough to anticipate the future consequences of their actions. (Laurence
Steinberg et al, "Age Differences in Future Orientation and Delay
Discounting," 80 Child Dev. 28, 35 (2009)). The prefrontal cortex is
essential for both impulse control and decision-making in complex or
high-stress situations and "the fact remains that young people between the
ages of eight and twenty-five do not have fully-developed capacity to control
impulses and make rational choices." (David Pimentel, "The Widening
Maturity Gap: Trying and Punishing Juveniles As Adults in An Era of Extended
Adolescence," 46 Tex. Tech L. Rev. 71, 84 (2013)). The U.S. Supreme Court
stated that "because juveniles have diminished culpability and greater
prospects for reform ... 'they are less deserving of the most severe
punishments.'" (Miller v. Alabama, 567 U.S. 460, 471 (2012), (quoting
Graham v. Florida, 560 U.S. 48, 68 (2010)).
While issuing his ruling, LaSata cited decades-old prison
rule infractions and alleged violations to justify his decision as well. Some
included allegations of misconduct that was not substantiated by MDOC reports
or that have been disproven. Included in LaSata's list of infractions was that
Efrén fathered a child nearly twelve years ago with a former staff member who
was employed at a prison where he was being housed at the time. Efrén and his
child's mother subsequently became married and remain so today. According to
LaSata, this human act between two consenting adults "violated all kinds
of prison rules." Efrén, however, never received a misconduct report for
any rule violation related to the incident by MDOC staff.
Richard Stapleton, a retired MDOC Hearings Division
Administrator, testified at Efrén's October 2020 mitigation hearing that any
misconduct allegations in his file which were not accompanied by official
misconduct reports should have been purged from the file. Therefore, the
allegations should not have been considered by the court during the mitigation
process.
A vast majority of the more than 200 juvenile lifers who
have been resentenced received dozens of misconduct reports while incarcerated
and it did not prevent judges from replacing their LWOP sentences with term of
year sentences. "'A sentencing judge's exercise of discretion must be
based on accurate information.' (People v. Smith, 423 Mich. 427, 448; 378 NW2d
384 (1985)). 'This is a due process requirement.' (People v. Miles, 454 Mich
90, 100; 559 NW2d 299 (1997))." (People v. Bennett, *30) Ignoring the
corrections expert's testimony and defiantly using erroneous and inaccurate
information to uphold a LWOP sentence in Efrén's case was a clear abuse of
discretion.
LaSata also begrudgingly acknowledged a number of Efrén's
accomplishments throughout his incarceration, as well as his large support system.
But while he described Efrén as "intelligent, charismatic, and
diligent," he also characterized him as manipulative. He dismissed three
decades of Efrén completing rehabilitative programming, enriching the lives of
others, participating in therapeutic counseling for the past eleven years, and
numerous other achievements by theorizing it "may have" all been
simply to receive "opportunities." Part of the reason the Michigan
Court of Appeals reversed the LWOP sentence in the Bennett case was that the
sentencing court "resorted to a purely theoretical and uncertain
prediction" about his future dangerousness. (People v. Bennett, at *30).
As he delivered his ruling LaSata never presented a modicum of evidence that
Efrén "was and would remain WHOLLY incapable of rehabilitation for THE
REMAINDER OF HIS LIFE[.]" (emphasis added) (People v. Bennett, at *9)
(quoting People v. Garay, 320 Mich. App. 29, 49 (2017)).
LASATA UNDERSCORES RACIAL INJUSTICE
Seated from the perch of his position of privilege, LaSata
punctuated the bias he exhibited in Efrén's case by attempting to manufacture
the sordid false narrative that racial injustice and the mistreatment of people
of color has never existed in St. Joseph. During his September 10 ruling,
LaSata remarked he did not believe Efrén's claim of ever being subjected to
episodes of ethnic slurs, bullying, and shaming growing up as a brown boy in a
majority white community. The year of Efrén's arrest the city of St. Joseph was
94% white residents. Blacks made up 3% of the population and the Latinx
population was a mere one percent.
LaSata made his abysmal statement bereft of any evidence
being presented in court by the prosecutor's office to disprove the anti-brown
or Latinx experiences Efrén encountered growing up due to his ethnicity. His
statement was an insult to people of color and offended the sensibilities of
any person who has not been tone deaf to the racial reckoning the nation has
been undergoing during the past year since the police killing of George Floyd.
It is also acutely obvious to any person of color who has ever visited or lived
in the St. Joseph area, which also happens to be home to the Berrien County
Courthouse and jail.
This was all very personal for LaSata who served as a
commissioner for the city of St. Joseph from 1991 to 1995. He was elected as
mayor of the city from 1995 to 1998 and also served in the Michigan House of
Representatives for the district from 1999 to 2005. His wife, Kimberley LaSata,
currently serves the district in the Michigan State Senate.
Berrien County has seated white judges on the bench and
white males have occupied the prosecutor's office since its inception. This is
true of other Michigan counties as well which has vastly contributed to the
acute racial sentencing disparities. "Children of color are 27% of the
child population [in Michigan] and 71% of children serving LWOP
sentences." (Connie de la Vega & Michelle Leighton, "Sentencing
Our Children to Die in Prison: Global Law and Practice," 42 U.S.F. L. Rev.
983, 994 (2008)).
To many folks, LaSata's ruling in Efrén's case was a modern
day legal lynching.
UNLOCKING OPPORTUNITIES FOR OTHERS
While LaSata's refusal to render a fair ruling was designed
to deny Efrén a meaningful opportunity for release consideration, the judge
also set in motion a chain of events likely to produce profound unintended
consequences.
Not only did LaSata carve out a clear path for Michigan
appellate courts to vacate his unwarranted ruling, he also set the stage for
Efrén's defense team to mount a constitutional challenge to MCL 769.25(a), the
law that allows sentencing courts to condemn juvenile offenders to prison for
life. He proved that some sentencing bodies -- though in the minority -- will
go rogue and refuse to fairly apply landmark U.S. Supreme Court rulings to
juvenile lifer cases being reviewed for resentencing consideration. Some will
also lack the moral courage to do so. LaSata's nod to the prosecutor's office
could now result in abolishing a LWOP sentence not only for Efrén but also for
the other remaining juvenile lifers awaiting resentencing hearings who could
benefit from a favorable appellate ruling in his case.
Since 2012, thirty-one states in the U.S. and the District
of Columbia have abandoned the practice of sentencing children to die in prison
or have no juvenile offenders serving a LWOP sentence according to the Campaign
for the Fair Sentencing of Youth. "[O]nly thirteen states have not
substantially narrowed the application of LWOP to juveniles through statutory
reform or by a lack of sentencing in practice." (Elizabeth C. Kingston,
"Validating Montgomery's Recharacterization of Miller: An End to LWOP for
Juveniles," 38 U. La Verne L. Rev. 23, 51 (2016)). A growing consensus of
states have embraced the U.S. Supreme Court's view that LWOP sentences for
juveniles are inhumane, draconian, and "akin to the death penalty."
(Miller v. Alabama, 132 S. Ct. 2455, 2466 (2012)).
FOREVER INCAPABLE OF CHANGE?
"Prominent leaders have spoken publicly about the
cruelty, inhumanity, and general senselessness of juvenile LWOP in the years
since the Miller [v. Alabama] decision." (Cara H. Drinan, Professor of
Law, The Catholic University of America, "The Miller Revolution," 101
Iowa L. Rev. 1787, 1831-1832 (2016)).
According to Linda Ross Meyer, author of "Forgiveness
and Public Trust," 27 Fordham Urb. L.J. 1515, 1539 (2000): "[P]eople
do not exist in an eternal moment ... [they] are constantly changing their
minds, projecting new actions into the world, learning and growing. We cannot
reduce them to one moment only, to one crime or one good deed."
Behavioral experts have found that no evidence exists that
personality ever ceases to change during a person's lifetime. (Avshalom Caspi
& Brent W. Roberts, "Personality Development Across the Life
Course," 12 Psychol. Inquiry 49, 51 (2001)).
Evidence also exists that personality traits change
gradually and systematically throughout the life span, sometimes more after age
30 than before. (Sanjay Srivastava et al., "Development of Personality in
Early and Middle Adulthood," 84 J. Personality & Soc. Psychol. 1041,
1051 (2003)).
The fact that "most mean-level personality-trait change
occurs between ages [twenty] and [forty] ... opens a new area of focus in
developmental science." The research further demonstrates that humans remain
an "open system" throughout life, susceptible to change at the
fundamental level of personality. (Brent W. Roberts & Daniel Mroczek,
"Personality Trait Chance in Adulthood," 17 Current Directions
Psychol. Sci. 31, 33 (2008)).
According to a 2009 amicus brief from the American
Psychological Association et al., "Brain maturation continues into the
mid-twenties and the brain is plastic and always changing." (Brief for the
American Psychological Association, American Psychiatric Association, National
Association of Social Workers, and Mental Health America as Amici Curiae
Supporting Petitioners at 24-27, Graham v. Florida, 558 U.S. 811 (2009) (Nos.
08-7412, 08-7621, 2009 WL 2236778)).
WOEFULLY MISSING THE MARK
At the conclusion of Efrén's September 10 court ruling
LaSata stated, "I'll be able to sleep well tonight knowing this case is
being appealed." LaSata knew he abjectly failed to discharge the duties of
his office and fairly apply the law in Efrén's case which resulted in a grave
miscarriage of justice. By wilfully rendering an arbitrary and unreasonable
ruling he abdicated his judicial responsibility to the appellate court to
properly resolve the case.
In his address to the delegates of the International
Association of Penal Law on October 23, 2014 Pope Francis stated:
"All Christians and men of good will are called today
to fight not only for the abolition of the death penalty, whether legal or
illegal, and in all its forms, but also in order to improve prison conditions,
with respect for the human dignity of the people deprived of their freedom. And
I link this to life imprisonment. A short time ago the life sentence was
removed from the Vatican's Criminal Code. A life sentence is just a death
penalty in disguise."
Most conservative Republican judges take pride in being
guided by their faith. They are also textualists who have a reverence for
constitutional original meaning. Textualism is supposed to be politically
neutral and offer protection against ideological judgement as a way to separate
the law from politics. LaSata chose to weaponize the law and betray his
fidelity to principles of conservatism in Efrén's case by replacing them with
his own brand of gross judicial negligence that ignores the concept of
redemption and the inherent dignity of young people. Fortunately there are
appellate courts to review decisions rendered by sentencing bodies who violate
their oath of office and put politics before the rule of law. The Judicial
Tenure Commission is tasked with reviewing claims of judicial misconduct as
well.
DESERVING OF SECOND CHANCE
In her academic journal article titled "All But the
Rarest of Children," 62 Wash. U. J.L. & Pol'y 227, 242 (2020), author
Allison M. Scoggin argues: "[T]he [U.S. Supreme] Court insists that only
'the rare juvenile offender who exhibits such irretrievable depravity that
rehabilitation is IMPOSSIBLE and life without parole is justified' can be
sentenced to life without parole. [Montgomery v. Louisiana, 136 S. Ct. 718, 733
(2016)]. Thus, if there is ANY evidence that the offender could mature or be
rehabilitated over time -- and the Court points out that 'all but the rarest of
children' is capable of such growth [Montgomery v. Louisiana, 136 S. Ct. 718,
726 (2016)] ] -- a life without parole sentence is disproportionate and
therefore unconstitutional." (emphasis added).
During the past 32 years Efrén has utilized his choice
architecture and tireless pursuit of education to continue expanding his
horizons, building understanding of the wider world, honing analytical and
communication skills, and fostering responsibilities beyond self. The abundance
of anecdotal and documented evidence of Efrén's enormous capacity for growth,
change, and rehabilitation disqualifies him as a candidate for a LWOP sentence.
It is also supported by myriad adolescent development and brain science studies
that directly contradicts LaSata's court ruling in Efrén's case. Simply
disliking Efrén or having disdain for him doesn't make him any less capable of
change and rehabilitation.
After having spent more than two-thirds of his life behind
bars Efrén deserves to receive a term of year sentence like the overwhelming
majority -- ninety-four percent -- of other similarly situated juvenile lifers
who have been resentenced across the state.
The Michigan Court of Appeals made it abundantly clear in
the Bennett case that "'[i]rreparable corruption,' [i.e., forever having
no capacity for change] is the ONLY ground [the U.S. Supreme Court]
specifically identified for imposing a life-without-parole sentence [for a juvenile
offender]. See Miller [v. Alabama], 567 U.S. at 479 (2012)." (emphasis
added) (People v. Bennett, at *10).
If the Bennett ruling is, in the words of LaSata, "a
published decision binding on this court" which lead to him rejecting a
LWOP sentence in the Abbatoy case, it is likewise "binding" on him to
fairly, equally, and proportionally reach the same ruling in Efrén's case as
well.
The appellate court should jettison LaSata's irrational and
unconstitutional ruling in Efrén's case as it did in the Bennett case when it
held: "We reverse and remand for resentencing to a term of years based on
the present record and consistent with MCL 769.25(9). We further instruct that
the resentencing be conducted with all deliberate speed." (People v. Bennett,
at *30-*31).
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Source: http://fb.com/Free.Efren.
To read an earlier series titled "Unpacking the Notion
of Rehabilitation in the Case of Efrén Paredes, Jr. (Part 1-5)" outlining
additional evidence and reasons he is not a candidate for a LWOP sentence you
can visit the following links:
Part 1 https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=10158667078805189&id=37153800188
Part 2 https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=10158677305845189&id=37153800188
Part 3 https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=10158685143250189&id=37153800188
Part 4 https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=10158704867365189&id=37153800188
Part 5 https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=10158734085285189&id=37153800188
